


Black Holes and Revelations

by Demenior



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton is Tobias, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, weird alternative continuation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demenior/pseuds/Demenior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is an assumed name. No one knows about the events leading up to the destruction of a city on California. No one knows of the brave people who fought to save the earth, who gave up everything to save those they loved and who died protecting it. No one knows about aliens, about morphing or about how much he's lost. No one knows about Tobias.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [If Man Were Meant to Fly… (His Wings Were Taken Long Ago)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/440446) by [Lia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lia/pseuds/Lia). 



> BUT not set in the same universe. 
> 
> Animorphs happened exactly as the books- except the war never went public and was made classified info by SHIELD. Jake, Rachel and Marco went off to save Ax and were successful. They died on the return journey.
> 
> Taking suggestions for a last name for Marco.

“Barton? I could use a little insight over here,” Fury calls over the headset.

Clint paused the tv. He was watching a documentary about the earthquake that nearly leveled a coastal Californian city over ten years ago. It was weird, seeing pictures of what the city used to look like—and the way he remembered it too. Arial shots, from above.

“ _Hawkeye_ ” Fury said, “don’t make me ask again.”

“On my way,” Clint replied. He moved quickly from his quarters, heading to work and leaving memories of the hours he spent above the city before it burned behind.

 

“What’s up?” Clint asked as he walked onto the bridge.

Fury and Coulson were watching a large—what looks like—radar screen being projected above them.

“We got company,” Fury said, “anyone you recognize?”

Clint flinched and glanced for any sign that someone overheard. But the bridge is relatively empty and Fury is still talking mostly through headset.

A language played for Clint and it isn’t thoughtspeak, it is familiar but he doesn’t recognize the accents.

Clint moved close to the two of them, tucking his chin to his chest to keep the sound between the three of them, “It _sounds_ like Galard.”

“But do you recognize the species?” Coulson asked.

Clint shook his head, “Do we have any visuals?”

“Negatory,” Fury stood back with his hands behind his back, feet spread. He looked calm but Clint knew where to look for stress. Humans never quite managed to stop making facial expressions. Fury was nervous. Something big is happening.

“Waiting for our satellites to get in range—but the closest one to the ship is dead. We’re not sure if it was shot down or if it’s orbital interference,” Coulson explained.

Clint let out a long breath, “How many ships?”

“Too damn many,” Fury muttered.

It hasn’t been long enough since Clint felt this pressure. The weight of an army hanging above earth and he being the only one who can stop them.

Well, not him alone. He’s part of a team.

They’re not the same, but he thinks they can learn.

“Where are we on making contact?” Clint asks.

“Sending our signals,” Fury says, “but I want you to deal with them for now. Give ‘em a boast and see if you can deter any bad ideas they might have.”

Clint knew someone who was much better at this than he is, and he tries to channel a bit of his old leader. Remembers the stance he had when he faced down two armies and negotiated an end to the war for earth that no one knows happened, covered in his brothers’ blood. He tries to forget the last bit, and works for the calm and assured. The fact that emotions still don’t reach his face helps a lot.

The screen lights up ahead of him—and god if this isn’t the Pool Ship all over again. The alien is unfamiliar to him, after all he’s seen. It’s a weird mix of a lemur, a mallet and beetle if he ever saw one. All in technicolour.

Clint’s picked up passable Galard from the times he’s spent visiting his extended family. The alien is speaking quickly, but he manages to get the gist of its meaning.

He patiently waits for it to finish its rants and demands, and speaks, “Hello. My name is Clint Barton. I represent Earth. You call yourselves the Turad?” Clint can think of at least three awful jokes that someone would have said long ago—but they’re dead, everyone’s dead and there’s only him and Cassie and Ax left—so Clint imagines Tony making the jokes. It’s funnier that way.

“Yes,” the alien says. It sounds bored, as if it can’t believe it is threatening a planet at someone who only speaks broken Galard, “I am Commander Fiidea.”

“You’ve brought an impressive fleet into our system, Commander,” Clint nods, “and it appears to me that you’ve also brought a lot of war ships. You’re a long way from home, as I was not aware of the Turad before this, so I can forgive your ignorance.”

“Earth is a low threat planet,” the Commander scoffs, “do you dare threaten me?”

“Earth has already fought and ended two wars. Have you heard of the Yeerks?”

The Commander makes a wheezing sound, it may be a long sigh, or laughter. Clint isn’t entirely sure, “The Parasites that tried to make puppets of all of us? Yes, we know of them. We know the Andalites took too long to beat the Yeerks stolen technology.”

“The Yeerk war ended on Earth and it was not the Andalites who ended it,” that was interesting, Clint noted, the Andalites were considered the solitary victors of the war. It may be better for Earth to stay under the radar, but _still_ , “it was a team of humans. We can supply you with the correct information, if you do not believe me. As for the second war—have you heard of the Howlers?”

Commander Fiidea suddenly reared back, making an awful wailing sound. They settled down, panting, “Yes. We know of those monsters.”

“Do you know why you no longer hear of them?” Clint asked.

The Commander narrowed their eyes, “Are you suggesting that humans fought the Howlers and won?”

“Six humans—sorry. Five humans and an Andalite. Against seven Howlers. I was there.”

“I do not believe you, human. Where are these soldiers? I should like to see such impressive creatures.”

Clint debated licking his lips to appear nervous, but continued staring instead. It helped unnerve humans so he hoped it worked on the Turad.

 “One other human remains on earth, while the Andalite is protecting his own people. The other three fell in battle after the wars ended. But one of these soldiers stands before you, and I ask you to think if threatening a planet such as ours is a good idea. Humans are capable of many things—and we have many allies. You would be wise to move on.”

“We have this planet surrounded. We can block off your calls for help. Can humanity truly fight on its own? Who do you have to stop us?”

“Actually,” Fury strolled up to stand beside Clint, “we have a ship coming into near orbit in the next few hours. They’ve been away from home for a few years now, really itching to touch ground again. But here’s the sad part—they’ve been banned from returning to the planet unless there’s a threat level high enough to risk letting them back in. Because that ship is carrying a shit-ton of crazy. Now let me ask _you_ , just what do you think these dangerous people are going to do when they see an army at their front door. Because I can guarantee you that I’m going to laugh when they tear you to shreds.”

The Commander was silent for some time, shifted in the screen, and finally rumbled, “I look forwards to meeting your unwanted.”

The connection went dead.

 

Clint turned to Fury, “We have ships? Sir—that’s a big boast. Stark can get things into the air but I don’t know if he can have anything space-worthy _and_ battle-worthy in _hours_!”

Fury exhaled loudly through his nose, “It’s not Stark. We _do_ have a ship in the big yonder,” he turned to Coulson, “contact (Marco) and Berenson. Tell them they can come in if they clear off my damn doorstep.”

Clint grabbed for Fury's arm, " _What_ did you say?"

Fury's scowl was cold rather than angry at being grabbed, "You heard me Barton."

"But they're... they're dead!" Clint's knees were shaking. His vision was tunneling. They were dead- they'd been dead for years. He'd moved on.

Fury pulled away, barking orders again. Coulson guided Clint to a chair.

"Agent Barton I want you to pay careful attention. Fury wasn't mistaken. Marco isn't dead... but there's only  _one_ Berenson."

"Who?" Clint whispered. His body felt cold. It had been so long since it had last happened he was startled when he started crying.

Coulson stood up straight, "I wish we knew."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super late and totally unbeta'd. I think there will be 1 more chapter to tie everything up, but otherwise I'm going to wash my hands of this plotbunny.
> 
> I'm still open to suggestions for Marco's last name.

Tony was about sixteen hours into his third day of no sleep—and without anyone making a fuss just yet—when Steve scared the shit out of him by appearing _out of nowhere_.

“Tony!” he shouted.

The screwdriver in Tony’s hand flew across the room and clanged loudly off of one of the suits he had up on display.

“Have you ever heard of knocking? I have a very serious heart condition you might have _killed_ me!”

Steve had a bit of a smug grin, “I did knock. Several times. You were staring at your fingernails. Maybe you should get some sleep.”

“Well thank you mother, I’ll get on that,” Tony muttered. What had he been doing again?

Steve pulled him up by the arm—and Tony really hated how easily Captain America could manhandle small— _normal_ sized—people like this and just get away with it.

“Not right now. Fury’s calling us in. Something big is happening.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tony, Steve and Bruce are all mobilized and on the bridge of the helicarrier within only a few hours. Tony wishes they’d arrived earlier.

Barton—stone cold, farsighted sarcastic asshole—looks like he was _crying_ just a little earlier. Tony didn’t think he was capable of crying with his weird eyes and lack of facial expressions. Tony’s still not sure the guy is actually human— _Bambi_ doesn’t even get him choked up. Tony knows this because of the informal Avengers movie nights which turned into grown adults watching childrens movies because the God of Thunder likes them and no one wants to argue with a dude whose arms are like _trees_.

Stone Fox is at attention, same with Natasha and _how_ did she get here so early? From his hacked files Tony knew she was working on something in South America. But Barton’s got red-rimmed eyes and his face is splotchy. He may be trying to pretend it didn’t happen but he was _totally_ crying.

Bruce hits Tony in the ribs before Tony could point it out. Why wasn’t anyone else making a deal about this? They took their seats at the round table and avoided awkward eye contact.

“Alright listen up,” Fury announced, striding in with his dramatic coat flowing behind him, “I’ve got a lot of information to drop on you and not a lot of time, so Stark? That means keep your trap shut.”

Tony rolled his eyes and Steve kicked him under the table.

“So, aliens do exist,” Fury started.

Tony snorted, “Yeah, we know.”

“And they’ve been here before—”

“We _know_.”

“And we had a team that managed to fight off an entire invas—”

Tony held up his hand, “Can we get to the new information, please? I feel like I’m pointing out the obvious but we were all th—”

“They held off an entire invasion in the ninties,” Fury finished.

Tony shook his head, “No… it was, like, last year.”

“You weren’t _there_ ,” Barton snapped.

“There was… a team before us?” Steve asked.

Fury shook his head, “Not like you. They weren’t SHIELD. We discovered them later into their war, provided them with support and the like. Covered up where they needed us to.”

“Does this have anything to do with that disaster in California?” Bruce was staring at his hands, working things out in his mind, “that would have been right around the same time, right? I mean, I always thought it was weird that an earthquake or a gasplant fire could wipe out an entire city—but it’s probably the best cover you could come up with.”

“So what does this have to do with us?” Natasha cut in, “what’s our job here?”

“Did you not finish the job last time and now they’re back?” Tony guessed.

“Earth is surrounded by a hostile force, and we don’t think we can tell them to go away nicely,” Coulson informed them.

“Shit,” Natasha muttered.

“Is it the same force from last time?” Steve asked.

Coulson shook his head, “No, we haven’t encounted them before.”

Steve made a face, and made a weird shrugging gesture that Tony could only hope he’d picked up from Bruce because if Tony was the one that did that he needed to stop, “Pardon me, sir, but then why is the information about the last invasion relevant?”

“I want you to understand the amount of crazy that is coming in for backup,” Fury said. He pressed a few buttons and the table lit up. In the center was the holographic projection of five humans and one thing that looked like a deer—except it was blue, had arms, four eyes and a scorpion tail.

“What the hell is that?” Bruce muttered, leaning in.

“An Andalite. For the most part, consider them our allies. This one fought on the front lines to help keep us safe,” Fury explained, “as for the others—”

They had all been so focused on the Andalite’s strange appearance that they hadn’t absorbed what they were really looking at. The projection of Earth’s Resistance was actually made up of a bunch of young humans. Really young.

“Those aren’t soldiers,” Steve growled.

“Those are _children_!” Bruce shouted, slamming his hands onto the table. Everyone flinched back.

“Are you telling me SHIELD had _children_ on the front lines? Fighting a war for _earth_?” Steve’s voice was getting cold with rage.

“As I said before,” Fury said, “we caught up to them closer to the _end_. They were never ours. We didn’t even know their identities until the last months of the war.”

“What, and you just couldn’t pull them out?” Tony snapped, “are you telling me that with your entire _army_ of freaks and supersoldiers you _couldn’t_ send them in because there were already _children_ fighting your war?”

Fury stared him down across the table. Because _yes_ that had to be the situation entirely and the asshole couldn’t even bother trying to come up with some redeemable excuse as to why it wasn’t what it seemed to be.

In the silence Natasha spoke softly, “Clint… is that…?”

One of the childrens’ faces was eerily familiar. It was cold, no hint of emotion. He was staring straight ahead with an unnerving gaze.

“Barton,” Steve turned to face Hawkeye, “you…”

Barton shrugged his shoulders, “Yeah. Me. My old team.”

“Jesus,” Bruce said under his breath.

“Explains a lot,” Tony muttered, keeping his glare on Fury.

“So,” Clint said, brushing off the subject, “when you say the amount of crazy? What are you talking about, _sir_?” His sneer on the end wasn’t even subtle. Barton was pissed and it _still_ wasn’t showing on his face.

“All six _soldiers_ survived the Yeerk war,” Fury said, “Aximilli,” the Andalite lit up with a red underglow, “returned home and was later compromised while on a scouting mission deep in space. It was assumed he was taken into hostile territory in which Andalites could not enter due to legalities. Jacob Berenson was contacted to lead a rescue mission. He took with him Marco ___ and Rachel Berenson,” the three named children—god they were so _young_ —all lit up green as Fury said their names, “as well as a few hand-picked soldiers. They were successful in returning Aximilli home, but by then only the Berenson’s and (Marco) were alive. We reported that they were intercepted on the journey to earth but this was incorrect.”

Clint’s sharp intake of air was audiable to all of them. He looked ready to jump at Fury.

Coulson held up a file of papers, “They returned to earth. But we realized that they had been compromised—the Berenson’s were not fit for civilian life, nor could we hope to contain them. Not a big fan of governments or being told what to do. We asked them to stand down anyways, to keep it quiet and go back to being plain, normal people. They refused.”

Tony and Bruce caught each others’ eyes as they glanced between Fury, Coulson and Barton. They’d never seen Barton so focused—in fact he almost looked angry.

“We had no choice but to expel them from earth,” Fury said, “we gave them a ship and wished them well. But the Berenson’s were no longer welcome. (Marco), for some insane reason, wanted to go with them. We’ve kept tabs on them, to be sure they don’t sneak back in. They were attacked as they left the system—thought they were all dead. We were wrong. (Marco) and one of the Berenson’s survived. They’ve been good though. Stayed away. They circle by around this time every year. Get a glimpse of home. They’ll be coming into orbit soon and I’ve given the orders that if they can help clear this fleet out of our system—then they can land here.”

“Of course they can come home,” Clint shouted, “what gave you the right to decide who was fit for a normal life? None of us _had_ a normal life!”

“Barton stand down,” Coulson ordered, though his tone was soft and slightly sad.

“Don’t you _dare_ tell me to stand down! I thought they were _dead_!” Clint continued, “so you had better give me a _damn_ good reason for forcing them away and faking their deaths!”

“They are _warmongers_ ,” Fury snarled, “and an increasing threat to our own peace.”

“Jake and Rachel would _never_ do anything to hurt the planet! We all nearly _died_ for it!” Clint was actually _furious_. Even Natasha took a step back from him. No one had ever seen this much emotion from the archer before.

Fury let out a frustrated sigh, loosening his shoulders, “Barton, I am not saying they saved the world. Without their help we probably would have lost to the Yeerks. But while war can make heroes of everyone—it’s the peace that is truly testing. I keep a close eye on _all_ of my soldiers. Not everyone can bottle back up what war drags out. Those two couldn’t. They were itching for another fight. We’ve got a pretty good hunch that they’re responsible for the deaths of the soldiers they took with them, and they killed at least six of my men before we turned them away.”

“And you’re saying they can come back here?” Bruce asked.

Clint turned like he was going to strike Bruce, the Hulk be dammed.

Bruce gestured to the holograms of the children on the table, “Like you said, sir. They saved the earth, but by any standards they _should_ be locked up for war crimes.” No one pretended not to notice Barton flinch. “But you did them a service by letting them keep their freedom. They’re heroes, I get that, but if you are expecting to use them and then kick them out, I think that’s a bad idea. These sound like people you don’t want to piss off.”

“What skills do they have?” Steve leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, “if they held off an entire invasion, _as children_. They must have powers.”

Fury and Coulson exchanged a glance, and Coulson took the lead.

“They weren’t born with them. The human children stumbled across a crashed Andalite spaceship while walking home and were given the Andalite morphing powers.”

“Technology,” Clint snapped. He took a step back and crossed his arms. He was shaking with rage, “it’s not a _power_ it’s their technology.”

Coulson nodded, “Right, sorry. The morphing technology allows whoever has it to aquire living DNA and transform their bodies into that creature. The Animorphs,” Tony’s stomach dropped and he wanted to be sick because a stupid name like that was _exactly_ something a bunch of children would come up with, “used the morphing technology to fight a guerilla war with the Yeerks until help arrived.”

Clint muttered, “Yeah, help.”

And because Tony wanted to change the subject away from _anything_ but the thought of twelve year old kids fighting guerilla wars he blurted out, “Pun intended?”

Everyone stopped to stare at him. Even Barton seemed shocked out of his rage.

“Guerilla, gorilla? Get it?” Tony laughed. He wished someone would kick him.

“I want to know why I haven’t heard about this before,” Natasha finally spoke up, “this is huge.”

“We are working on keeping Earth on the down low,” Fury said, “after the war we realized we could reveal the existence of aliens to the world, and put ourselves out there while we were still _vastly_ behind in terms of technology and weaponry. Or, we keep it quiet and maintain truces with our neighbors until the human race is ready. New York last year pushed that date up quite a bit, but the general plan stays.”

Tony and Steve seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time. Tony didn’t want to let Steve beat him to the punchline.

“You said fleet—earlier—that there is a fleet above us?” Tony asked, “as in there is _another_ alien invasion?”

“We don’t know much,” Coulson admitted, “but they’re more advanced than we are, weapons wise. We can use atomic bombs if it comes to it, but I think we’d all rather not detonate those above earth.”

“Do we know they want to fight?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah,” Barton said, “I made contact earlier. Tried to let them slide by, but their commander—Fiidea—is looking to start something.”

Everyone who was not Coulson or Fury was staring at Clint like he’d startled them.

“What?” he asked.

“What language was that?” Steve asked, “I haven’t heard it?”

“It’s not just you,” Bruce said, “I’ve travelled to a lot of places where they don’t speak _anything_ commonplace and I’ve never heard it.”

Natasha shook her head, “Me neither. Is… is that alien?”

Clint ducked his head, and ran a rough hand down his face, “It’s Galard—a common intergalactic language—most species can use it or are capable of base communication. It’s meant to be used when establishing new contact. The Yeerks greatly popularized it with their host species. I, uh, know people who taught me the basics.”

“That was the weirdest sound I have ever heard come out of your mouth,” Tony admitted, and then spun in his chair to face Fury and Coulson, “okay—fleet in space. What numbers are we looking at and what’s our timeline? Because I may or may not have been working on something that might be space-ready but if you have been holding out on me with some advanced alien technology then I want it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha walked with Clint into the hallway, “So. You weren’t kidding when you said you started young.”

Bruce and Steve weren’t being subtle about listening in. Clint didn’t want to have this conversation in front of them—or at all. But he didn’t know where to go when he couldn’t escape into the sky.

Clint shook his head, “No. I’d just turned thirteen when Elfangor—the Andalite—crashed in front of us.”

Natasha put her arms on her hips, standing surprisingly heavy on her feet, “So when you told me you’d been tortured before?”

Clint nodded, “I was the only one who could do it.”

Steve looked sick, “ _You_ were the only one? How old were you?”

Clint shifted his weight from foot to foot, “I’m not sure—my, uh, my age is a little off. By a few years. I’m really not sure where I am, in human years I guess. I was physically thirteen—actually, no. I was at least four—maybe five?”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce cut in, “what?”

Clint’s head is still spinning from what he’d learned earlier—and the thought of having his first team (his family) back, or at least those left, has dropped his defenses. Stark would love to see him right now.

He didn’t mean to give so much away, “Well,” he sighed, “on one of our first missions—there’s a time limit to morphing. Two hours or you can’t morph back and you’re stuck in that morph forever. I screwed up and was stuck as a hawk. A red-tailed hawk,” he felt proud remembering his name, his old body. The strength and fragility and the duality of Tobias the human and Tobias the hawk.

Steve glanced around, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“Did the Andalites fix you?” Natasha asked.

“A… there was a miracle,” how else to explain what really happened, “a freak chance of nature. I regained the ability to morph, and even to take my human form. But only as a morph. The hawk was my real body.”

“So you can’t morph anymore can you,” Natasha pressed. She seemed to be taking all of this in stride.

Clint shook his head, “No. I decided to _nothlit_ myself when my hawk body started getting too old.”

“Jesus,” Bruce muttered, rubbing his eyes under his glasses, “this is a lot to take in.”

“Thank god we’ve got some time,” Natasha replied. Clint was relieved she was taking charge. He wanted to sleep or fly or fight. He didn’t know what but he wanted to stop dredging up the past to people who wouldn’t—who _couldn’t_ —understand.

“Fury said we have eight hours before we have to be suited up,” Natasha said, “go get your stuff together.”

She caught up with Clint halfway down the hall.

“A _hawk_ ,” she said, and there was an air of teasing in her tone.

“Shut up,” he muttered, but couldn’t feel the irritation he intended to put into the tone.

“You’re awfully _not_ creative,” she replied, “Hawkeye. Please tell me—hold on.”

She grabbed him, to spin him and look into his face. Clint didn’t like holding eye contact too long. If he was focused on one person he might miss something—and his eyes…

“You kept the eyes,” she realized.

“Yeah,” he admitted, and then changed the subject, “I am _really_ bad at names.”

“What’s your real name?” Natasha asked, “and I’ll find it if you don’t tell me.”

Clint swallowed, “Tobias,” he whispered, “my name used to be Tobias.”

He couldn’t read the expression on Natasha’s face. Maybe she was putting everything together now. Why he had so much combat experience but so little time in the field. Why he was distant about things and why he couldn’t make expressions unless he tried.

“It’s a sweet name,” she said finally, “but Clint suits you much better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers watching Disney movies is my blatant, not-at-all subtle shoutout to the better Animorphs/Avengers crossover in which that actually happens and it's wonderful and heartbreaking

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What Might Have Been](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1332118) by [Demenior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demenior/pseuds/Demenior)




End file.
